fronds, and seems to consist of minute elongated grains or
spicules of wax, which is soluble in alcohol and ether, and
melts on the surface of hot water.
The veins are free, and several times forked from a
midvein. In the fertile fronds they bear the sporangia in
long lines, which become broader as the spores ripen, and
not rarely entirely cover the under surface of the frond. The
spores are roundish-tetrahedral, and faintly trivittate.
The genus Gymnogramme^ is characterized by having
the naked sori oblong or linear, following the course of the
veinlets, and, like them, either simple or forked, pinnated, or
variously anastomosing. There are nearly one hundred species
in the genus, of which only two are known in the United
States, and three in Europe. The subgenus Ceropteris includes
the species, six or seven in number, which have fronds coated
beneath with colored powder. Several of these arc well known
in cultivation under the name of Gold-Ferns and Silver-Ferns.
Plate X LV III., Fig. 1 - 5 .— Gymnogramme triangularis. Fig. i is
a plant from Santa Barbara, sent by Mrs. C o o p er . Fig. 2, a segment
of one of the lower pinnæ. Fig. 3, a part of a segment, more magnified.
Fig. 4, a spore. Fig. 5 is the variety viscosa, sent from San
Diego by Mr. D. C l e v e l a n d .
'T h e name o f the genus was originally written Gymnogramma, a neuter noun,
but was changed to the feminine form for sufficient reasons by Sprengel and Kunze.
See tlie note under Ciyptograinme, a precisely parallel case, in Hooker’s Species F i l i cum,
ii., p. 126.
P l a t e X LV III. — F ig . 6 - 1 i .
G YM NO G R AM M E H ISP ID A , M e t t e n i u s .
Hispid Gymnogramme.
G y m n o g r a m m e h i s p i d a : — Root-stock very slender, creeping,
somewhat chaffy; stalks scattered, four to six inches
long, grayish-brown, puberulent; fronds pentagonal, one to
three inches long and broad, hispid above, beneath tomentose
and chaffy along the rachis and midveins with very narrow
hair-like scales, pinnate; lower pair of pinnæ much the largest,
unequally triangular, again pinnated; the remaining pinnæ
and the lower pinnules of the first pair pinnately lobed; the
lobes rounded and obtuse, the basal ones adnate to the rachis
or the midrib, forming an interrupted wing alternating with
the pinnæ or principal segments; veins obscure, all free, sori
in long lines along the veinlets, hidden by the tomentum.
Gymnogramme hispida, M e t t e n iu s , MS. — K u h n , in Linnæa, xxxvi., p.
7 2 . — B a k e r , Syn. Fil., cd. ii., p. 5 1 6 .— E aton, Ferns of the
South-West, p. 305.
Neurogramme pedata, E aton, in Bot. Mex. Boundary, p. 235, not of
Link.
Gymnogramme pedata, E aton, in Robinson’s Check-list, not of Kaulfuss.
Gymnogramme podophylla. H o o k e r , Sp. Fil. v., p. 1 5 2 , as to the New
Mexican plant.